TIRANA, Oct. 17, 2022 – A major increase in irregular migration through and from the Western Balkans toward the European Union has renewed worries in EU states, which can lead to negative repercussions for countries like Albania and Serbia.
Such concerns deal primarily with the growing number of third-country nationals using the Western Balkans as a jumping point toward the European Union. There are, for example, a growing number of Cubans, Indians, Turks and Burundians traveling via Serbia and Albania to claim asylum in the EU, according to recent reports.
Suspension of visa-free travel as worse case scenario
EU officials are now contemplating suspending visa-free arrangements with Western Balkan states, a worst case scenario, due to the fact that these non-EU states exercise their independence in having more liberal visa-free bilateral agreements than the Schengen area.
But that freedom “contributes to the growing number of irregular migrants entering the EU via this route,” the Czech EU presidency warned in an internal memo dated Oct. 11, and leaked to the EUobserver. “Nationals from Turkey, Tunisia, India, Cuba and Burundi, in particular, enter legally (visa-free) by air in Serbia (and from some of these countries also in Albania) and a very high number moves irregularly further towards EU member states,” the memo said “These are unusual nationalities on the route and there is a risk of a growing trend.”
Albania has enjoyed visa-free travel with most of the EU and several other European countries in the Schengen Area since 2011, Serbia since 2010.
FRONTEX report: Western Balkan route is now the most active entry point
The leaked memo comes as the Western Balkan route continues to be the most active migration avenue to the countries of the European Union, according to a newly published report by EU’s border management agency, FRONTEX, that looked at migration data for the first nine months of 2022.
According to the report, 19,160 irregular migrants were registered in September alone, twice more than the same period of the previous year.
The report estimates that the high number of illegal border crossings in September can be attributed to repeated crossing attempts by migrants already present in the Western Balkans.
Albania is part of the Western Balkan route, with irregular immigrants usually entering from Greece and traveling to Western countries, crossing to Montenegro or through the Port of Durrës to Italy.
Illegal migration trends have also reappeared through the maritime space from Vlora to the Italian coast.
To respond to high migration pressure, FRONTEX has deployed more than 2,360 officers and staff in various sections of the European Union’s external border, as well as in Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and Moldova.
Uptick seen in overall irregular migration
According to preliminary estimates, in the first nine months of this year, around 228,000 irregular entries in the external borders of the European Union were recorded, with an increase of 70 percent compared to the same period last year.
The total number of irregular migrants registered for the nine months from January to September 2022 is the highest since 2016.
According to the FRONTEX report, people fleeing Ukraine and entering the European Union through border crossing points are not part of the figures of illegal entries detected.
According to the latest FRONTEX data, more than 11 million Ukrainian citizens have entered the European Union from Ukraine since the beginning of the war. At the same time, a significant number of Ukrainian citizens have also returned to their country.
English Channel crossings to UK also a concern
The report also mentions an increase in crossing to Great Britain through the English Channel.
In the first nine months of 2022, the number of irregular migrants was around 53,000, an increase of 68 percent compared to the same period in 2021, including attempts and crossings by small boats.
As has been highly cited in the British press, many of the people using the illegal channel crossing vessels are Albanian, lured by unrealistic expectations and false advertising on social media.
As winter approaches, the number of attempts could increase before sea conditions worsen and make the crossing more dangerous, VoA’s Albanian Service reported.
According to official British statistics referring to the first 6 months of 2022, migrants from Albania, Afghanistan and Iran accounted for more than half of the total number of irregular migrants who entered Britain by dinghy via the English Channel,
According to the data, 18 percent of irregular immigrants were Albanians, whose number has increased significantly in the last two years.
